


The Enigmatic Canvas

by TakingFlight48



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Draco gets a sleeve done by Pansy, Draco is trying to find his mystery woman, F/M, Fluff, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, He wants to touch her body, No angst here, Pansy and Theo have a tattoo shop, Partying in Morocco, Post-War, She is engimatic, Tattoo!Hermione, Tattoo's everywhere, because its beautiful, dramione - Freeform, he wants to lick her tattoos, just a Draco who wont stop looking for his perfect match, she has all the best tattoos, tattoo!draco
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:21:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29444736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TakingFlight48/pseuds/TakingFlight48
Summary: He didn’t know who she was or what she looked like.  That didn’t stop Draco from trying to find the enigmatic canvas that Theo was always working on.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 6
Kudos: 94
Collections: Dramione Valentine Exchange





	The Enigmatic Canvas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cnova](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cnova/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [DramioneValentineExchange](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/DramioneValentineExchange) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Tattoo!Hermione, any HEA situation  
> Thank you so much to our amazing hosts, K and Floorcoaster. This was fun even if it was completed at the eleventh hour like the procrastinating dummy I am. 
> 
> AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! SURPRISE xoxoxo 
> 
> Casey I wanted so badly to make this perfect for you and then time. So I hope you enjoy instead the much shorter, abbreviated journey of Draco finding the woman with all the best tattoos. Spoiler its Hermione. 
> 
> Happy day of love my friend xx
> 
> Enjoy ☮ ✌

It had been years since Draco found himself laid flat on his arse after Portkey travel. However, the trip had been long and unsettling from London to Morocco. With a grunt Draco shifted to his side, eyes blinking open slowly and looking out into the hustle and bustle of the Ministry around him. Just as he felt ready to peel himself off the ground and make his way towards his destination, a dainty ankle shifting through bodies between them caught his attention. Not because it wasn’t a very lovely ankle but because there—beginning at her ankle and crawling up her perfect calf—was the tree of life tattoo Theo had been carving onto his secret client. 

With a start, Draco shot up from the ground, hands coming up to steady himself and the momentary vertigo his speed produced, as he darted eyes through the milling crowd. He needed to find her. Since the first time he had visited Pansy and Theo’s tattoo parlour,  _ Atramento _ , upon his return back to England permanently he had been entranced with the living canvas Theo had been working on. 

Her voice was always soft, virtually indecipherable, partially due to the magic imbued in the walls separating Pansy’s workspace and Theo’s, and partly due to the mild temperament he was sure this stranger had. However, as Draco pushed through the throng of bodies, seeking out lightly tanned legs sitting atop sexy black heels, he cursed himself for not having noted the colour of her dress. 

With a growl, Draco gave up on his pursuit of this elusive witch, hoping upon hope that she was close enough to Pansy and Theo and she would be at her festivities this week. Otherwise, what a coincidence that his mystery woman would also be in Morocco of all places. 

Idly watching a deep green sunhat as it floated ahead of him, Draco made his way to the riad of Pansy’s choice. He tried to push aside the beautiful leg that had held so still, so calm, as Theo dragged his needle over her skin until a luscious tree took root. Its colouring blended perfectly into her natural skin tones, and all she did was flip page after page of a book he couldn’t see from the table he had laid over. He shrugged his shoulder at the phantom memory of the first time Pansy’s needle had touched his previously inkless skin. 

Sighing, Draco passed check-in, knowing he was early, and proceeded to the open pool in the centre of the hotel, ready to relax until Pansy’s meticulous schedule kicked in. 

* * *

* * *

With a deep groan—legs shifting against the soft seating below him—Draco stretched before sighing back into a relaxed position. He was thankful he had taken a short nap, the Moroccan sun warming his skin and his spells, keeping away the worst of the UV rays, had lulled him to sleep. Resting his head against his folded arms, Draco looked to see who else had joined him poolside. He knew Pansy had managed to book the entire riad for their party, a feat no one else could have succeeded in and was eager to see how many people he would recognise. 

He knew he was at a disadvantage having been out of the country for years following the war, but it had been worth it. Thus far, his reception amongst Wizarding England had been much more favourable than the short time he had existed within their population immediately following his release of all charges. 

With a grin, he flung his legs over the sun chair and slid his sunglasses off his head and back onto his face before making his way over to where Pansy and Theo were surveying the room. 

“Hey tossers,” Draco whispered behind them, laughing loudly when Pansy jumped and slapped his still healing forearm. 

“Hey yourself. I will ruin you if you scare me again, Malfoy,” Pansy hissed back before turning to Theo and continuing the conversation, all the while making room for him between them.

“I expect the last of the guests will arrive within the hour. Only a few of our closest friends are here already. Have you checked into your room yet, Draco?” Pansy pushed Draco’s arm off her shoulders grumbling about ruining her tan as if his arm would ruin the little sun her pale skin could soak in 

“I arrived before the both of you,” Draco shrugged, turning his attention away from Theo as he made eyes with a pool girl across the way. “They told me to relax by the pool until either of you showed up to get everything sorted. So I swam and slept.”

The trio moved away from the far side of the pool deck, following the deep red clay tiling back to the hotel’s main entrance. Draco, eyes trained on the bright wooden panelling surrounding the pool room, barely noticed a familiar-looking emerald green sun hat. However, when his memory zeroed in on the same hat he had seen hours earlier, he slowed his steps as they walked past its owner's sun chair. 

“Holy fuck,” Draco sighed as he spotted an intricate quill up the side of her extended rib cage. Her arm was tucked under the hat as if the hat wasn’t enough to block out the rays from above, but he would recognise that quill anywhere. It had been the quill he had watched slowly take life along her exposed chest as he returned for Pansy to drill more lines and swirls into his arm. She had insisted on a sleeve when Draco had simply wanted to get enough tattoos to walk out at the same time as their mystery client. 

Draco moved to break away from his two friends when Theo’s hand landed firmly on his shoulder. However, it wasn’t Theo that explained his actions, but Pansy who watched him with a furrowed brow, light amusement highlighting her smirk. 

“Leave her be. Remember this hotel is for us all weekend. She’ll be there tonight,” Pansy urged as she closed the distance between them, pushing him back towards their original destination, but Draco opened his mouth to protest. These two knew he had been vying for this witches attention for months. Theo had even taunted him that he had attempted to ask her out himself and failed spectacularly. 

“She’ll be there in the shiny blue dress, and I guarantee her hair will be up in a high ponytail, okay? For now, she needs to rest. She never stops moving; don't take this time away from her.” Draco felt a surge of protection for this woman swell in his chest even without knowing who she was. 

Although that wasn’t quite right, was it? As he sat under Pansy’s attention on the tattoo table, he had learned that getting his skin forever changed with ink could be a very personal experience. Every detail Pansy added to Draco’s skin, every grit of his teeth and leaked tears at sensitive locations, reminded him that he did know her. 

Draco knew she loved natural colours, splattering her tree of life with earthy tones that reflected the symbol’s elegance instead of the artistic abilities so many vied for today. He knew she had love either for the written word or for writing as indicated by the vintage quill lining the side of her abdomen. The detailing within the metal nub, the ink trickling almost realistically onto the base of her hip, and the way the feathers looked as if they were moving. This all spoke to Theo’s talent, certainly, but also her desire to endure the pain and sessions it took to get that masterpiece right. 

Lastly, he knew that she led a life that didn’t quite showcase the artwork etched upon the canvas that was her skin. Each tattoo Draco had been lucky enough to witness take shape was able to be hidden, able to be kept safe under layers and hidden away until she wanted the world to see them. 

Draco took heed to Pansy’s words with a groan and sent a final glance to the mystery woman. She was so close, so close, and he was so close to seeing if it was just her tattooed skin that called to him or something more, something more profound. 

* * *

* * *

The hypnotic rhythm of the music greeted Draco as he stepped out of Pansy’s room—the hotel had messed up his reservation and forcing him to stay with her—and he walked over to the inner balcony of the riad.  _ Atramento’s _ guests were milling about the first floor, an assortment of coloured drinks in their hands—although Draco couldn’t see a bar from here—and everyone wearing various shades of elegant summer clothing. 

However, all Draco cared for at that moment was spotting a blue dress with a high ponytail. Pansy had ensured him, just moments before she left, that she had helped her friend pick out the dress herself. When he didn’t spot the elusive woman anywhere, Draco finally made his way down to join the festivities. 

Pansy and Theo had officially been in business for three years, and as tradition would dictate, they were celebrating their third anniversary in style. 

Draco mingled, shifted, and meandered amongst the riad’s beautiful architecture for an hour or so. He loved how rich the colours were and the open space concept that it boasted. He knew this would do well in England if only the weather would be as decidedly magnificent as it was there. 

Leaning against the marble arch that separated the main area to the outer bar, Draco scanned the crowd once again. He had seen one other person in a blue dress so far, and after gently making his way to them, he realised they could not be his mystery woman. She had been lovely to speak to, but her skin was covered neck to ankle in tattoos instead of the subtle additions his witch had made to her skin. 

Throwing back the last of his iced whiskey sour, Draco made to go back out to the bar for a third when he finally spotted her. And it was her. There was no other person in this Merlin forsaken party that could have such a magnificent tattoo embedded into her skin and pull it off. She was just as tanned as she had been a week ago when she was getting a tattoo even Pansy wouldn’t let him see sketches of. 

And he was glad. For before him, on the small canvas that this witch had relinquished to Theo time and time again, was an Opal Dragon in sparkling shades of blue and black. He could just see small patches of green and white littering along the scales and the dragon's eye—almost eerie—watched him as he approached her slowly. 

She was magnificent. Standing at almost a head shorter than himself, the ponytail Pansy had insisted she would be wearing was indeed high. It was a miracle that this woman could contain the size of her hair in one small tie as it cascaded over her shoulder and out of sight from where he currently stood. Once he got close enough to touch her, he wanted to drag his hand down the almost translucent straps of her dress that crossed lightly over the Dragon’s middle and kept the low hanging skirt at an appropriate length. 

Draco wanted to touch her, to feel the skin he had so coveted since his return to England. He wanted to trace his fingers over each patch of colour on her back, knowing that Theo’s work was intricate and it would feel as natural as if she was bare there. Instead, he did the sensible thing, crossed his hands behind his back and cleared his throat. 

He stood there for a moment, eyes meeting the couple who had been conversing with her quietly. He nodded once in thanks when the woman bid her goodbye and told his witch someone was behind her. 

Draco wishes he could say that he was calm, the perfect image of poised pureblood perfection as she slowly turned, but it would be a lie. His heart was racing, his hands sweaty in their grasp, and he would down another two drinks right now if he could to give him the courage he had sorely lacked for so long. She shifted, her soft chin and lovely profile making itself known to him, moments before Hermione Granger faced him. Draco physically froze, lips slightly parted as he simply drank in her deep caramel eyes. 

_ “What is the point of friendships when you wankers won’t help a mate meet their perfect match. I promise we are made for each other; I can feel it.” _

_ With a deep sigh, Pansy plopped back down across from him as Theo chuckled into his tumbler. “How do you know if you have never spoken a word to her and cannot even put the pieces together enough to find her?” _

_ Draco tightened his fists against his knees before loosening them once again and looking at them for a long moment. “I have never been so mesmerised by someone without knowing a lick about them. It cannot simply be lust when I want to do more than run my mouth over their tattoos. I want to know why she chose a war Manifesto as her reading material to get a calf tattoo. I want to know what music she had playing in her muggle music player when you worked on her rib cage. Fuck, I just want to know her.” _

_ Draco had turned away from his two friends and current banes of his existence as he spoke, only returning his gaze when he finished.  _

_ “We’ll tell you, but if you don’t believe us, that’s on you,” Pansy murmured.  _

_ “It’s Granger,” Theo said, face serious, but it was the challenge in his eye that had Draco taking a pause.  _

_ “Right, so thanks for helping me out you bastards,” Draco had spat instead, walking away and leaving for his flat, heavy with disappointment.  _

“Granger?” Draco almost whispered into the space between them. 

“Hello, Draco,” she whispered back, taking a quiet sip of her champagne glass. Draco followed the way her neck extended back, catching sight of a small trail of daffodils from just behind her ear to the base of her neck. He tried to swallow. It was the same space he remembered his aunt touching with that cursed knife. 

“Granger,” he choked out again, before turning and fleeing from her presence. 

* * *

* * *

He had hidden. He wasn’t proud of it, but he had very little reason to believe she would want even another moment of his time. She had clearly denied Theo a date because of their past. She had clearly been invited to this party, not for her actual friendship but her patronage of their business. 

The longer Draco sat outside, partially hidden in the shadows of a bench nearest the outdoor bar, the more ridiculous his explanations got. He was about to simply go back to England, forget this ever happened and thank Salazar that Pansy had finished his sleeve when a feminine cough sounded directly behind him. 

Slowly, Draco turned in his seat on the bench, the smooth marble making his turn much faster than he’d have wanted and looked up into the furrowed brows of Hermione’s eyes. He had never seen her stare so intent on him before, and yet he couldn’t stop the way his eyes drifted back to the tattoo on her neck. It was one thing to cover up scars of their youth with beauty, but she had used a flower that meant so very much to him to cover up a trauma they both witnessed. 

He watched even as her dark painted nails trailed over the same flowers, eyes only leaving them when she spoke. “I know you didn’t stick around for long, and I don’t blame you, truly. But this tattoo means more to me than you can know.”

Draco simply watched her, before he shifted, making room for her on the small bench. 

Hermione’s eyes glanced down, fingers twirling the almost empty glass idly in her hands as Draco waited for her to continue her thoughts. 

“I ran into your mother for the first time two years after the war. She was a shell of the woman I had seen so many years previous, very much like I was a shell of the witch that had supported Harry in defeating Riddle.” Draco flinched at the memory of that monster, even if he had known him by a different name. 

“She helped me overcome so many parts of the war, and this tattoo—the very first one Theo ever etched onto my skin—was less about forgetting a dark time in our lives and more about the rebirth that came, however late, in my life in the form of your mother.”

Draco simply sat there watching her quietly for the longest time. “Thank you for telling me, you didn’t need to,” he finally managed. 

“I have been watching you,” Draco said again after some time, ready to explain his brash remark but she beat him to it, laughing lightly. 

“I know, Theo told me, and I asked him to keep my identity a secret until he couldn’t any longer.” Hermione had turned to face Draco more fully, her knee—exposed from the slit in her dress—nudged his thigh and his hand automatically and without thought rested against her warm skin. 

“Fuck,” Draco growled as his thumb finally, blessedly touched her, felt her, moved even a small amount over her. 

“I didn’t believe them when they said you were  _ you. _ But I guess that shows how little I have changed if I thought you couldn’t either.” Draco’s brows furrowed as he followed the slow circles his thumb made along her inner knee. 

Hermione shivered lightly at his continued touch. “It is something about me I like to keep hidden unless I trust you. I have more tattoos than even you saw me receive.”

Her smile was light, her eyes bright as he finally met her gaze once again and he blurted out the first thing that crossed his mind, “I’d like to see them, taste them.” 

“I heard the riad messed up your reservation,” she whispered, angling herself closer to him. 

“They did, I am staying in Pansy’s room.” 

“Mmmm, I think you may want to steer clear of that space tonight. I heard she was finally making her move on Ron and I have it on good authority that he’s quite eager for her to do so.”

Draco threw his head back in mock disgust, loving the way her laugh fell around him again. 

“I can probably help, though,” Hermione surprised him. “The only issue is I only have one bed…”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks go out to my amazing alpha - [Kiwi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiwi05622/works) for her time and love and attention. 
> 
> Any mistakes therein are my own. 
> 
> Please leave love in words or kudos as they motivate and uplift.   
> ॐ


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